I think that this is a really innovative product, super sexy and everything, HOWEVER, in Apple's implementation of the product this is premature.
Why?
1) This is invariably geared towards road-warriors. Primarily, this means something about battery life. According to the spec sheet the battery is integrated so its not replaceable. Considering the fact that the battery is rated at 5 hours, this presents a significant problem for road warriors who need all-day battery life (read: 10 hours plus) - meaning, Apple needed to find a way to either double that battery life (dubiously possible) or make the battery replaceable/have high capacity batteries.
2) SSD's are still too expensive for the market. An MBA with an SSD should cost $2400, max, and Apple should have probably waited until SSD prices dropped a bit. You would think that this isn't a big problem but - 4200 RPM drives are really, really slow, and Apple is trying to claim how much faster their MBA is over comparable ultraportables. I predict that the difference between SSD's and the 80 GB drives on the hard drive benchmarks when this comes out are going to be enormous.
3) Considering the fact that Apple could have waited a bit, it is more than definitely possible that Apple would have put a WiMax chip in here which the MBA is just begging for.
Consider the following as well:
1) The 4200 RPM drive is a PATA (read: IDE, not SATA) drive. Would making the hard drive a SATA drive really upset weight/battery etc (do 4200 RPM SATA drives exist)? Does this mean that the SSD will be IDE as well? Will the storage device be user-replaceable (it looks like it from the keynote, but considering the battery among other things...)?
2) No Firewire? This isn't that surprising considering the fact that Apple is pushing wireless NAS's but we don't want to have to buy a new wireless hard drive if we already have a good, working FW drive in our homes. It's not like there's an easy 802.11 FW adapter out there either.
3) No dock? Yeah you can buy some simple USB docks from Belkin and the like but those aren't Mac-styled, let alone something that fits the curves of the MBA.
All in all, I do think that this is a very good product - it well suits the needs of people on the go who need to work on email, work, presentations and the like on a full-size keyboard, but Apple missed the mark on the battery and the internal storage.
Why?
1) This is invariably geared towards road-warriors. Primarily, this means something about battery life. According to the spec sheet the battery is integrated so its not replaceable. Considering the fact that the battery is rated at 5 hours, this presents a significant problem for road warriors who need all-day battery life (read: 10 hours plus) - meaning, Apple needed to find a way to either double that battery life (dubiously possible) or make the battery replaceable/have high capacity batteries.
2) SSD's are still too expensive for the market. An MBA with an SSD should cost $2400, max, and Apple should have probably waited until SSD prices dropped a bit. You would think that this isn't a big problem but - 4200 RPM drives are really, really slow, and Apple is trying to claim how much faster their MBA is over comparable ultraportables. I predict that the difference between SSD's and the 80 GB drives on the hard drive benchmarks when this comes out are going to be enormous.
3) Considering the fact that Apple could have waited a bit, it is more than definitely possible that Apple would have put a WiMax chip in here which the MBA is just begging for.
Consider the following as well:
1) The 4200 RPM drive is a PATA (read: IDE, not SATA) drive. Would making the hard drive a SATA drive really upset weight/battery etc (do 4200 RPM SATA drives exist)? Does this mean that the SSD will be IDE as well? Will the storage device be user-replaceable (it looks like it from the keynote, but considering the battery among other things...)?
2) No Firewire? This isn't that surprising considering the fact that Apple is pushing wireless NAS's but we don't want to have to buy a new wireless hard drive if we already have a good, working FW drive in our homes. It's not like there's an easy 802.11 FW adapter out there either.
3) No dock? Yeah you can buy some simple USB docks from Belkin and the like but those aren't Mac-styled, let alone something that fits the curves of the MBA.
All in all, I do think that this is a very good product - it well suits the needs of people on the go who need to work on email, work, presentations and the like on a full-size keyboard, but Apple missed the mark on the battery and the internal storage.